The Technologists (11 page)

“That strikes me as ideal,” commented Eliot, with a grateful nod at Hammond. “We demonstrate concern—but indirectly and staying a safe distance away from the heart of the matter.”

Watson laughed dismissively. “A rather small thing! No offense, my dear Mr. Hammond—I applaud your charity. But at least we should be offering the police department the use of our equipment and resources in conducting an investigation. If what has happened in Boston represents some experimental deployment of technology, why, the mastery, the command, of the darkest reaches of scientific and mechanical arts shown may exceed even the collective knowledge of this room.”

“You exaggerate the matter, surely,” Eliot insisted.

“Is there a man here who can say before God he sits here today unafraid of what has happened, and what may happen next?” Storer asked.

His words cast a pall over the meeting. Even Eliot could not volunteer.

Rogers had a far-off gleam in his eye. “I can recall when I had first proposed the formation of a school of technology, my presence was requested at a meeting of the state legislature,” he said. “
The New York Times
had printed a column entitled ‘American Science: Is There Such a Thing?’ I knew then I could never stop until such a column would not be suitable to print. Even our name proved a rather bold and controversial choice. The word
technology
was then found in even fewer dictionaries than it is today. The Speaker, a Mr. Hale, suggested the indefinite descriptions of this institute were likely thin disguise for a house of ill repute, or some other sort of sordid operation that would turn Boston into another Paris. If it
were
a brothel, would not more than fifteen boys be in our first graduating class?”

Laughter swept the room, washing away some of the tension that had built up. All except Eliot, who studied his colleagues with disapproval.

Rogers continued, in complete control of the audience even with his
occasional interrupting cough. “The lawmakers finally agreed to pass our charter, but only if we consented to a gratuitous insert they called the ‘public peace and harmony’ clause, stating that at no time would any individual affiliated with the Institute use expertise in science to harm a fellow citizen. If we were to take part in discovering the scientific causes of these incidents, we might finally show that the kind of science we teach here helps society. That our institution, that the new men under our care, filled with the fire of modern thought, however different they might appear from those at other colleges, and the technologies we promote and teach here, will protect, not threaten, the public good. I believe in my heart we shall be safe while we pursue this policy, and in danger as soon as we abandon it. Is it not our duty to give the victims solace, by at least providing an explanation? If I could but live to see it, I hope that we might make a small but important accomplishment: that our institution be understood rather than feared so that our students can step forward into the world outside and proudly call out a promise, ‘We Are Technology.’ ”

The words swelled inside Marcus. Only when he saw Albert’s stricken look did he realize that he had lost his inner compass as he listened to Rogers and had jumped to his feet. A few professors craned their necks to look over at him standing awkwardly in the corner. Fortunately, Professor Storer was holding his glass in a manner that suggested a request. Marcus grabbed the pitcher of water and filled it.

“If I could but live to see it,” Rogers repeated, in softer tones, his eyes meeting Marcus’s as the student perched back on the edge of his stool. For a moment, it seemed they were the only two present, and that they were testing each other.

“President Rogers, such noble sentiments are appreciated by every man here, to a person. But I only wonder if everyone has seen the late edition of the
Transcript
,” Runkle said reluctantly. “I have it right here. It seems the legislature has assigned Louis Agassiz a position as consulting detective in this matter.”

The gavel thumped again to quiet the outbursts.

“Agassiz!”

“How awful!”

“Humbugs!”

The gavel’s echo traveled up to the high ceiling as the outrage continued.

“That Harvard fossil, with his pickled mollusks!” added Watson.

“Agassiz despises the Institute,” Rogers whispered gravely. Louder, he said, “Professor Agassiz does not conceal his wish that I—and our college—will fail.”

“Indeed,” Runkle said, nodding. “I fear any involvement we attempt now, any assistance, however well-meaning, will be twisted by Agassiz. If we stepped forward and anything were to go wrong, the Institute would be harshly blamed.”

“There is nothing new in that,” said Eliot sadly, eager now to prove his points beyond a doubt. “Nothing new. When I was a student at Harvard, my very interest in chemistry made me an outcast, and later Agassiz refused to allow me to teach it there. The Institute is on the verge of leading the way to a new age of scientific acceptance among the public, and we cannot risk delaying that. Agassiz will listen to nothing we say, regardless. We must protect ourselves and the Institute, first and foremost!”

“Thank you, Professor Eliot. Let us put the matter to a vote,” Rogers said, regaining his composure. “Those in favor of the Institute insulating itself from any scientific inquiries involving the recent disasters, indicate your vote now.”

Eliot raised his hand high in the air before Rogers had completed his sentence. Professor Watson, his angular cheeks reddened, crossed his hands across his chest and wore an expression of stubborn resistance. One by one, hands around both sides of the table were brought up, some assertively, others bashfully, until all but a few of the men present were showing affirmative votes on the motion. Marcus looked on, dumbfounded, as Rogers gingerly lifted his own hand.

“The ayes have it, then,” Eliot crowed. “Resoundingly.” He looked around as though expecting gestures of congratulation.

“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty, students, and employees will hereby refrain from any involvement in these matters, and the committee shall censure with forceful action any who shall defy
this agreement,” Runkle said, by way of dictating minutes of the meeting to the appointed secretary.

Marcus was crushed by the decision.

“Well? What are you going to do?” These words, hissed from the mouth of Albert Hall, broke his trance.

“What?”

“The hats and coats. What are you planning to do, wait for them to return themselves? The meeting is at an end.” Albert shook his head. “No wonder Eliot speaks of eliminating the position of the charity scholar, with you as one example!”

*   *   *

T
HE
I
NSTITUTE’S FRONT STEPS
appeared imposing to the outsider. But it was a monumental place to Tech students—a central gathering place, a meeting point, an outdoor dining room, the public debate forum. Near the middle tread of dark granite, Edwin Hoyt had propped his notebook on top of his Bible and was making notes between bites of his afternoon meal. He had conceived a new hypothesis: Heat did not, as believed, emerge from the vibration of molecules. If he could work it out, the topic could form a crucial part of the senior dissertation he was finishing. The intense mental exercise, moreover, helped put the ruins of State Street out of his thoughts. He had probably spoken about it too openly to his classmates, but maybe the more people who knew what he saw Friday—the panicked mobs, the injured lifted into ambulances, the screams of worried family members—the less it would be his responsibility to carry around.

This afternoon was pleasant, if chilly, though the Tech senior preferred to eat on the steps even when a dark sky or a rumble of thunder counseled against it. It gave him a valid excuse to keep his hat on, anyway, over the patch of salt-and-pepper at the back of his head of tangled hair. The truth was, it would have lent him a dignified air if not for his awfully boyish face and frame. Nobody at school really noticed anymore, but the taunting by Will Blaikie on the river brought back memories of past torments when he had first started at Tech. Not from Marcus Mansfield—never Marcus, who had seemed to Edwin from the first to
be more man than boy, not simply because he was a few years older—nor did he have to suffer any teasing from Bob, who was too bewitched by his own majestic curls to notice the flaw atop someone else’s head.

After the initial hazing, Edwin had considered himself friends with almost everybody at Tech, and for that matter almost everybody else. He never imagined having an enemy, and yet he knew in a way that reflected the chief deficiency in his own character: He did not possess the bravery to proclaim his beliefs or challenge those of others.

If he did have an enemy—no, a rival—it would have to be Chauncy Hammond, Jr. Not personal, but strictly academic. The two were forever neck-and-neck for the top class rank of the ’68 boys. The rivalry was more acute in the eyes of others than in the hearts of the contenders, though the whole college wondering who the first Top Scholar of Tech would be could not but alter them, especially with graduation approaching. Edwin’s natural reticence was deeply jarred by knowing he was a subject of any gossip. This was the same young man who unconsciously left a little of every meal he ate so that he would not appear gluttonous.

Edwin’s personal determination had been fired his first year at the Institute, the sophomore year for the Class of ’68, when President Rogers had proposed that the students create scientific demonstrations out of proverbs or sayings. Edwin had worked with a team that put out a well-liked version of “too many irons in the fire.” But Hammie, voluntarily toiling alone, filled a porcelain teapot with a third water, a teaspoon of chlorate of potash, three minuscule shavings of phosphorus, and a healthy quantity of sulfuric acid poured through a clay pipe to the bottom. A storm of hissing, popping, and explosions resulting inside made Hammie’s “tempest in a teapot” the undisputed victor. As Edwin watched the accolades, his own aspirations grew—not only to be scientifically correct, but to achieve scientific imagination.

The tempest in the teapot turned out to be Hammie’s peak, bringing him good will and popularity. A few months later, at another college-wide assembly of demonstrations, Hammie had grandly proclaimed he would usher in a new age and announced plans for building a “steam man.” The steam-powered machine would be made of various metals in the shape of a man, with a complicated series of mechanisms that would allow the metal being to pull a carriage or complete other tasks with the
strength of twelve horses. Even the technological mavens of the Institute, students and instructors alike, were confounded by Hammie’s intricate scheme to invent an artificial worker and his insistence that such “men” (he used this term, despite loud objections and a silent shudder in Edwin’s own soul) could ultimately not only save their human masters immense pain and labor, but also prevent future scourges of enslavement such as the one that had led the nation into war.

“Man is nothing without steam, nothing more than animals, anyway. Steam has given us the power of machines; now we must give machines the power of free force and movement. The iron men will be joined by iron oxen and iron horses to plow all arable land so no child will ever again starve and no man live in poverty. Carlyle says, our era, if we must give it a name, is not the Heroical but the Mechanical Age!” Hammie intoned portentously at the conclusion of his presentation, standing in front of his diagrams in the large hall. From that point on, Hammie was an oddity, at best, and would never regain a favorite, or even comfortable, status among his peers. When his idea was somehow discovered publicly, the Institute was written about in newspapers as far away as London, warning about their secret plans to diminish humankind with artificial beings, starting with the worry, of all things, that the ugly steam men would be put in hotels in the place of comely chambermaids. The steam man was held up in religious sermons to preach against the dangers of science, and used in magazine fiction to entertain juvenile readers.

If Edwin could work out his new theory about heat and molecule vibration, he thought he could beat Hammie by a hair—although he reminded himself that it did not matter one brass farthing who was at the head of the class. He was not at Tech to
win
anything or to prove himself to others, but to be a scientist. He had started his college career at Harvard, enrolling in the science curriculum overseen by the celebrated Professor Agassiz. When the bashful freshman quietly chafed about learning chemistry through memorization of theories from books, rather than in a laboratory, Agassiz scoffed and noted that Harvard was not a place of “practical education” and would not tolerate a desire for “industrial science.”

“You are totally uneducated, Mr. Haight! Yet you presume to question my methods?” When Edwin later expressed sympathy
with theories held by Charles Darwin, and the idea that science, just like the species, would have to change and advance to survive, Agassiz asked him pointedly if he believed in God.

“Professor. I have carried a pocket Bible since I was twelve. But didn’t God make the world a workshop for us to discover all His earthly machinery?” Edwin asked earnestly.

There was nothing personal in Agassiz’s exclamations and outbursts—he would often forget a student’s name or substitute one pupil’s name for the other as he did with “Haight” for “Hoyt.” Yet Edwin found himself, as some kind of punishment, locked in a room filled with turtle shells, with no teacher, where he was expected to classify the markings on each and, in doing so, recognize some higher truth. Edwin grew certain during that first year that what he sought existed only at the new Institute of Technology he had read about. Of course, Agassiz would be furious at the defection. He and Rogers had had six public debates on Darwinian evolution at the Society of Natural History several years before. Even those who sympathized with Agassiz’s position admitted that Rogers won these contests. He had remained calm and collected, methodically presenting scientific fact, while Agassiz was quick with his temper and insults, thrown into an absolute fury when he was speaking and Rogers shook his head in silent disapproval. Patient and irresistibly tranquil, Rogers seemed almost to trick Agassiz into admitting several errors key to his whole argument. He used his own guns against him.